Overview
What this book is about
Ott's core claim is that light is the "ignition system" of metabolism, which he calls "biological combustion." Food is the fuel and oxygen is the air, but every chemical in the body absorbs specific wavelengths of light. If those wavelengths are missing, the chemistry runs incompletely. Modern people live under artificial light with a distorted spectrum. They also filter out the rest, especially ultraviolet (UV), with window glass, windshields, eyeglasses, tinted contact lenses, sunglasses, smog and suntan lotion. He calls the result "malillumination," by analogy with malnutrition. Much of this light acts through the eyes. Following the ophthalmologist Fritz Hollwich, Ott says part of the optic nerve is an "energetic" pathway to the hypothalamus, pituitary and pineal glands, separate from vision. He calls this "photocrinology."
The book's second strand is newer than his earlier Health and Light (1973). Ott argues that living cells have an "electrical dimension." He says low-level radiation from man-made devices disturbs it: - trace X-rays and radio-frequency (RF) emissions from fluorescent tubes - X-rays from TV sets and computer screens (cathode-ray tubes) - microwave ovens, ionizing smoke detectors and digital watches - synthetic materials such as polyester and vinyl, refined sugar and white flour
His main "measuring instrument" is the applied-kinesiology arm test. A person holds an arm out while someone presses down on the wrist. Ott says the arm goes "down like limp spaghetti" under fluorescent light, when looking at a pink card, or when holding a lead pencil or a packet of white sugar. He builds a "theory of multifrequency interaction" on these tests. The third strand is that light is an uncontrolled variable in cancer research and a cause of behavior problems. He covers animal tumor studies under different lights, hyperactive children under fluorescent tubes, and pink holding cells in jails.
The evidence is very mixed, and Ott says so himself. His foreword admits that "some of the first interesting results I reported were no more than serendipitous observations," and he calls the arm test "simple and somewhat unscientific." - Controlled studies he cites: the Gabby, Sydnor, Scanlon, Wills Eye (Sery) and NIEHS (Chignell) animal tumor studies; Hellman & Lytle; the EHLRI classroom study (Mayron); Beral's 1982 Lancet melanoma study; and published papers on fluorescent light damaging cells in culture. - Uncontrolled or anecdotal material: his own arm tests, letters from readers, newspaper stories of cancer remission, the chinchilla breeder, the pink jail cells. - His own double-blind test failed. In Appendix I (1984, UCSF), Ott did all the muscle testing himself. When everyone knew what was being tested, his score was near 100%. Under double-blind conditions it was 53%, "what might be expected from just flipping a coin." He concludes that thought affects muscle strength. He does not withdraw the earlier chapters. Most of Chapters 1 and 4–7, and part of Chapter 11, rest on this test.
He also reports the critics' side fairly fully (Ch 10): RCA's failed replication of his TV experiments, Westinghouse's null result, and the Stony Brook–General Electric classroom study that found no effect.
Edition note. The main text is the 1982 first edition. Callahan's preface is dated 1981, Ott says he is 72 (he was born in 1909), and the latest event is an FDA contract dated March 2, 1981. Five appendices were added later: - Appendix I opens "Since this book was first published in 1982" and describes a test that began on March 28, 1984. - The appendices cite the winter 1983–84 avian flu, a May 1983 news story, Dec. 1982 news items and an Alberta study from 1982–83 whose results were "still being analyzed." - The appendices are set in a different typeface, and the index stops at p. 163, before them.
So this is the revised edition, which matches the catalogue's "2nd, 1985." The copyright line reads "1982, 1990 Ott Laboratories, Inc." A "Sources of Information and Lights" page sits after the index, with a Tampa address and an 800 number. That suggests this scan is a 1990 printing of the revised edition.
Conflicts of interest. The book is copyrighted by Ott Laboratories, Inc. It tells readers to look for a "Full Spectrum – Neutral Stress ® Ott Laboratories" seal on products. It recommends shielded full-spectrum fixtures from a Tampa maker whose listed address is his own former institute (EHLRI). It also lists "Ott Light Systems Inc." as a source. The book never says whether Ott earns money from any of these. The full list is at the end of Practical Takeaways.
Eyes. There is a lot here on light entering the eyes, and on glasses, sunglasses and contact lenses filtering it. There is also material on squinting and eye strain, pterygium, UV and the retina, and one child's eye tumors. The book says nothing about dry eyes. The only mention of dryness is a monkey study in which researchers put saline on the cornea "to prevent drying" (Appendix III).
Key Ideas
The core frameworks and findings
1
Malillumination and "biological combustion"
(Ch 3). Ott's model is a car engine: fuel (food), oxygen, and ignition (light). He says every vitamin, mineral and drug has a "maximum wavelength absorption," and light acts on chemicals in the blood through the skin. Wavelengths missing from artificial light or filtered by glass leave those chemicals "in the equivalent of darkness." His support is phototherapy: blue light for jaundiced premature babies (Cremer 1958; Lucey) and UVB for uremic itching (JAMA 1980). Every accepted light therapy uses blue or UV, the wavelengths most missing indoors.
2
Living things respond to narrow bands of wavelengths, not just light versus dark
(Ch 2, 8). The examples: His rule: "just any old blue light will not necessarily do."
3
The eyes are an endocrine channel, not only a camera
(Ch 3, 11, 12). Ott quotes Hollwich (University of Münster), who in 1948 called the nerve path from the eye to the pituitary the "energetic portion" of the optic pathway. Light through the eyes drives the pineal and pituitary. In Ott's arm tests, looking at a pink card weakens all the muscles, and closing the eyes restores strength within a second or two. Color-blind people react the same way. He takes this to mean the effect runs through the "retinal-hypothalamic-endocrine system," not vision. Pink-tinted lenses "stop these beneficial wavelengths from entering the eyes, thus causing an endocrine deficiency."
4
UV is a trace nutrient; blocking all of it creates a deficiency
(Ch 3, App III). Too much oxygen blinds premature babies, yet no one proposes living without oxygen; Ott says the same applies to UV. He calls the eye-damage studies unrealistic and attacks the "UV 400" lens sold for normal eyes. Short-wave UV, which the ozone layer removes, is harmful; he would call it "near X-rays." He wants long-wave (near) UV restored. People at high altitude, with more UV, have "old age, no cancer, and good eyesight" (Ch 10).
5
Fluorescent tubes do three kinds of harm
(Ch 3, 4, App IV): Plants under tube ends grew stunted. Aluminum foil over the ends did not help, but lead foil did, so he concludes there are X-rays too faint for standard meters. Old tubes, with roughened filaments, emit more. He says harms usually blamed on fluorescent UV are really caused by the RF and X-rays.
6
TV sets and computer screens (cathode-ray tubes) emit X-rays
(Ch 2, 10, 12, App V). Ott says his TV experiments led to the 1968 Radiation Hazards Bill. Rats in front of a picture tube covered only by black paper became aggressive, then lethargic, and "finally, they all died." Rats behind lead stayed normal. Citing the Congressional Record, he says recalled sets emitted up to 1.6 million times the 0.5 milliroentgen-per-hour limit, and he wants the limit "substantially lowered."
7
Muscle testing as a detector of "stress frequencies"
(Ch 4–6, 11, App I). The arm test comes from applied kinesiology (George Goodheart). Ott says these weaken the muscles: Some combinations "cancel," which Ott uses to explain failed demonstrations. His 1984 double-blind test scored 53% (App I).
8
The "electrical dimension of living cells"
(Ch 5, 7). A lightning rod pointing away from the chest weakens the muscles, and pointing toward it strengthens them. The effect reverses on the back, which he ties to "Yin Yang" polarity. He also says negative ions give energy and positive ions fatigue. He builds on Philip Callahan's work on insect antennae and "electret" cells. He speculates that sleep "charges" the body with "nighttime radiation," and is "absolutely convinced" psychics see auras.
9
Light is an uncontrolled variable in cancer research
(Ch 8, 9). Ott says six major medical centers confirmed that light type changes the rate, size and number of tumors in animals. Yet lab lighting "is still the responsibility of the janitor." Rival Laetrile results may reflect lab lighting. The American Cancer Society and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) turned down or ignored his proposals.
10
Outdoor light in cancer remissions
(Ch 8, App IV). In Ott's collected remission stories, the person left fluorescent-lit rooms and spent time outdoors, usually without glasses. In Jane Wright's 1959 pilot at Bellevue, 14 of 15 terminal patients told to live outdoors without glasses showed "no further advancement." There were no controls. Ott calls related anecdotes "hardly scientific proof."
11
School lighting, hyperactivity and teeth
(Ch 5, 10, App V). EHLRI's study compared four windowless Sarasota classrooms: 48 children under cool-white tubes and 50 under shielded full-spectrum fixtures. Ott reports calmer hyperactive children, better learning and one-third fewer cavities. Smaller studies in Santa Cruz, Longview (Washington) and Wetaskiwin (Alberta) agreed. A Stony Brook–GE replication with 7 children found no effect.
12
Pink: a short dose calms, a long dose enrages
(Ch 11, App V). Ott reports that a pink Navy holding cell ended hostile incidents during 10–15-minute stays. An inmate left in it four hours "virtually went berserk," and mice kept under pink light for months turned aggressive. He puts the limit at about 15 minutes, the length of a sunset. He calls pink and orange sodium-vapor "crime lights" "a major contributing factor" to crime.
13
Light changes how drugs and nutrients act
(Ch 3, 6, App II). Most drugs are more toxic at night than by day. Light-sensitive drugs may need lower doses for people who get sun. Display-case light destroys vitamins in milk (Sattar & deMan). Calcium is absorbed better under "artificial sunlight" than under cool-white tubes.
14
Industry resists the idea
(Ch 10, 12). At a 1960 General Electric seminar, GE's top medical adviser called Ott's talk "the silliest, most unscientific presentation he had ever witnessed," and Ott's consulting contract was not renewed. Ott sees a "clear-cut line" between industry-funded and independent results. He says he was asked to make time-lapse films "that would be unquestionably fraudulent."
Contents
Chapter by chapter — click to expand
§
Front matter (Foreword, Preface, Introduction)
▾
- Author's Foreword: 33 years of articles. Early results were "no more than serendipitous observations," but later studies were done at university-affiliated medical centers. Lab lighting is "the responsibility of the janitor." The book's new angle is "the diminishing sex drive." He calls his earlier books My Ivory Cellar (1958) and Health and Light (1973) "requisites."
- Preface, Philip S. Callahan, Ph.D. (1981): a USDA insect researcher and author of Tuning in to Nature. "A little is a lot": light "dopes" the body as trace minerals dope transistors. He mentions chakras and calls Ott a "natural philosopher."
- Introduction, Fritz Hollwich, M.D. (Professor Emeritus of Ophthalmology, Münster): lists the harms Ott names: digital watches, polyester, vinyl, smoke detectors, fluorescents, fetal monitors, color TV. He expects some conclusions "will be confirmed" and calls Ott "a 'Rousseau' of our day."
§
Ch 1 — A Funny Thing Happened at the Luncheon Table (p. 1)
▾
- Smoke detectors and sex drive: from "several uncontrolled studies," Ott believes an ionizing smoke detector within 50 ft of the bed "diminishes both the male and female sex drive and can cause complete impotence." He says polyester nightclothes and sheets, a lead pencil and battery watches do the same.
- Two days of muscle testing at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), under different lights and sunglasses. The doctor's equipment showed the heart muscle weakened too: "we know that light affects the muscle that controls the opening and closing of the pupil."
- Fetal monitors and C-sections: a New Jersey hospital doctor tied rising Caesarean rates to new electronic fetal monitors and a "gross loss of uterine muscle strength." The rate rose from under 2% to over 25%; Ott later found hospitals at 36% and over 50%. This is the doctor's account.
§
Ch 2 — How It All Started (p. 6)
▾
- Biography: first time-lapse in 1927; banker until 1948; a weekly Chicago TV gardening show for 10+ years; more than 50 cameras. Films: Disney's Nature's Half Acre and Secrets of Life, Paramount's On a Clear Day.
- Light and sex ratios: pumpkins, guppies and chinchillas (Key Idea 2). On the guppies Ott speculates about "homosexuality and... transsexual operations" (pure speculation). Spectra vary between batches of the "same" tube.
- Backyard animal lab under pink fluorescent light: heart calcium deposits, smaller litters, more tumors ("confirmed by six major medical centers"), and aggressive, cannibalistic animals.
- His TV experiments led to the 1968 Radiation Hazards Bill. Geraniums under tube ends led to new school fixtures, with "one-third fewer cavities."
§
Ch 3 — Biological Combustion (p. 18)
▾
- The combustion analogy and the oxygen argument for UV (Key Ideas 1, 4). He recommends Zane Kime's Sunlight Could Save Your Life (1980) and Hollwich's The Influence of Ocular Light Perception on Metabolism in Man and in Animals (1980).
- The Hollwich quote: artificial light is "by no means equivalent to natural light," and too much fluorescent light "interferes with the natural development of the child."
- Jaundice phototherapy: Cremer (1958); Jerold Lucey blindfolds infants and treats them 8 hours a day for 5–6 days, now with full-spectrum tubes. A Westinghouse bulletin says saturated blue lamps make watching staff nauseous; its fix is a gold tube or amber curtains.
- Missing wavelengths: cool-white and incandescent light lack blue, and pink lenses block it from the eyes. Lighting may change how chemicals build up in factory workers. "Phototoxicity: The Neglected Factor" (JAMA, 1979). Most drugs are more toxic at night.
- Malillumination defined. Speculation: viruses as "abnormal chemicals"; cancer as endocrine imbalance via the pituitary.
§
Ch 4 — Kinesiology (p. 27)
▾
- Lens study (1977): Charles Schultheiss and Brian White (Salisbury State College) found photochromic lenses weakened the shoulder muscle but "full-spectrum, neutral gray lenses did not."
- Pupil experiment: a UV-transmitting contact lens in one eye and a UV-blocking one in the other. The pupils were equal indoors. In sunlight the UV-receiving pupil was "significantly smaller." So people behind clear glasses or windshields "squint and suffer eyestrain," then reach for dark glasses.
- How to do the arm test: arm out, palm down; press the wrist with the lights off, then on.
- What spoils the test:
- eyeglasses, tinted contacts, sunglasses
- smoke detectors within 50 ft
- battery or luminous watches, calculators, VDTs, microwave ovens, power lines
- vinyl and polyester
- sugar or white flour eaten in the last 3–4 hours
- Pink and orange weaken most, blue least.
- Fluorescent tubes: they give only trace long-wave UV. Their RF upsets computers and hospital scanners. Radiation from the tube ends passes aluminum foil but not lead.
- Standard tubes weaken even behind UV shields. Adding natural near-UV plus RF and X-ray shields gives "no loss of muscle strength."
§
Ch 5 — The Electrical Dimension of Living Cells (p. 33)
▾
- The lightning rod and Yin Yang (Key Idea 8). The effect works only by day. It is blocked by negative-ion generators, steel buildings, fluorescent lights, smoke detectors, black-and-white TVs, VDTs and synthetics.
- "Hear Wax": Ott, aged 72 with about 50% hearing loss, coats his ear canals with one-third each beeswax, castor oil and lanolin (olive oil itched). Audiograms showed "no significant difference," but he hears better in noisy rooms. He had a patent search done.
- Point emitters: a metal wire pyramid, a sharpened pencil (not a flat or double-pointed one) and metal eyeglass frames all weaken. A wire joining the frame temples behind the head "equalizes" them.
- True vs mixed colors: true pink or orange weakens, but look-alike mixtures (red plus white, red plus yellow) do not. Ott says the eye's "energetic system" reacts to real wavelengths, not perceived color.
- EHLRI Sarasota school study: one-third fewer cavities, calmer children.
- TV and grades: a 1980 California survey of more than 500,000 pupils. Sixth-graders watching ≤1 hour of TV a day scored about 7% higher than those watching 4+ hours. Twelfth-graders watching 6+ hours scored about 14% lower.
- Sleep: night-blooming plants open in a dark closet, which Ott attributes to "nighttime radiation." Elodea chloroplasts need a full dark period, and plants failed 650 ft down a coal mine. He asks whether sleep "charges" the body. Drugged sleep is worse than natural sleep.
- Elderly people watching TV under fluorescent light; office workers at VDTs behind tinted glass; tranquilizer use rising.
§
Ch 6 — The Theory of Multifrequency Interaction (p. 46)
▾
- The theory: every substance radiates a frequency, and the combined "mass" of everything touching a person adds up or cancels.
- Sugar: half a teaspoon under the tongue weakens for about 4 hours. A packet held on the skin weakens at once, even through a chain of people, which he calls the laying on of hands.
- Raw or brown sugar is fine; white flour weakens and whole wheat does not.
- Floors and fabrics: vinyl floors, vinyl soles and artificial turf bring sore feet, aching backs and fatigue. Polyester sheets mean more trips to the bathroom at night.
- Other weakeners: manufactured cigarettes (not cigars, pipes or roll-your-own tobacco); a box of Rely tampons; magnets held to the ear, including phone receivers and hearing aids ("another reason for using 'Hear Wax'").
- Milk under light (Sattar & deMan, Guelph): display-case fluorescent light (100–200 foot-candles; stores measured 25–500) destroyed vitamin C and riboflavin in every container but an opaque pouch. Light below 465 nm destroys vitamin A and beta-carotene. The Chelsea Soldiers' Home study found better calcium absorption under artificial sunlight.
- Microwave ovens: every oven tested weakened people within 6 ft, up to about 60 ft. A microwaved hamburger tested weak; frozen or pan-fried ones tested strong.
- Margarine weakens and butter does not; boiling the margarine for 3 minutes removes the effect.
- Anecdotes:
- Ott's own arrhythmia ended after he threw out old polyester work pants (normal exam, Feb. 1981).
- A dentist's shoulder tendonitis cleared within 48 hours of removing his digital watch.
- Children (and a puppy) avoided fathers wearing digital watches.
- Failed demonstrations are blamed on negative-ion generators or a hidden smoke detector.
- NIH letter (Russell M. Jaffe, M.D., Ph.D., Dec. 6, 1978):
- Near-UV in a solar-like spectrum increased shoulder strength vs warm-white tubes.
- RF at 0.1–100 MHz weakened it, and RF shielding restored it.
- Red-dominant light weakened more than blue.
- Ray-Ban #15 neutral gray sunglasses (which cut near-UV and blue) weakened; UV-transmitting plastic sunglasses did not.
- A detector for 290–430 nm light drives the iris muscle, and "contact lens wearers are frequently 'light sensitive' because their lenses block the near-UV."
- The National Eye Institute offered patients with retinal defects for study.
§
Ch 7 — Thermal Effects and Electret Cells (p. 66)
▾
- Electrets (Callahan): materials such as sulphur, Pyrex, beeswax, sugar and plastics hold a charge that shifts with temperature, pressure, sound and radiation. All of them weaken muscles when held.
- Chilling breaks dormancy:
- Black-spot fungus spores germinated only after refrigeration.
- In a 1948 Northwestern film, rat cancer cells divided only after an accidental chilling; heated transport had failed for months.
- Soil bacteria and cocoons also respond to chilling.
- Water (Ott's arm tests): fluoridated toothpaste and water piped through PVC weaken. Well water, rain water, distilled water and water from cast-iron mains do not. Boiling removes the effect; chilling restores it.
- He asks about iron, fever, and RF or microwave heating of tumors.
§
Ch 8 — Light: The Missing Link? (p. 78)
▾
- Hidden lighting variables:
- In an isolation-stress rat study (Science, 1963), the cage racks were swapped between window and dark sides during mopping.
- "Pterygium Among Veterans" (Archives of Ophthalmology, Aug. 1963) blamed UV for this growth on the eye. Ott found the high-rate Cree in Manitoba had been issued wrap-around, leather-trimmed sunglasses. Tropical servicemen with pterygium "all had constantly worn prescription sunglasses." He says blaming UV "cannot be justified."
- Alcohol: rats chose alcohol under UV light (Wilson, 1976) and after melatonin injections (Axelrod). Rats with pineals preferred alcohol in darkness (Blum).
- Other light-dependent results: slime-mold spores (cool-white vs warm-white); a herpes dye-plus-light treatment that failed to replicate under incandescent light; carcinogens as stronger photosensitizers (Takayama & Ojima, 1969).
- Laetrile:
- Letters with Sloan-Kettering (C. Chester Stock agrees lighting "should be controlled"), Harold Manner at Loyola (no reply), Hans Moolenburgh (his successful patients were outdoor types who "do not wear glasses") and the Mayo Clinic (declined).
- Laetrile absorbs from blue to a 250–270 nm peak. Trace short-wave UV reaches the ground, and narrow-band energy matters (his magnifying-glass analogy).
- Remission stories (anecdotes): a man on his porch and in his rose garden (Time); Maude Blanford reading her Bible outdoors (Guideposts, 1972); a Norwegian doctor who went fishing.
- Ott adds: cancer "almost unknown among Africans" (John Gunther); cancer appearing at Schweitzer's Lambaréné hospital as local people took up sunglasses ("hardly scientific proof").
- Jane C. Wright (Bellevue, 1959): 15 terminal patients; 14 showed "no further advancement" by her judgment. The one who declined kept her UV-blocking prescription glasses. There were no controls, and the repeat study was cancelled.
- Animal tumor studies:
- Gabby (Sherman Hospital, 1961): C3H mice, 98% of which get breast cancer. Under pink tubes nearly every female got cancer; they died a month earlier and had litters of 1–2 instead of 6–15. Mice under window daylight got cancer 2–3 months later than those under artificial light.
- Sydnor (University of Chicago): rats given carcinogens had more tumors under light than in darkness, and more under standard than daylight incandescent bulbs. Unpublished.
- Scanlon (Evanston Hospital, 1963): hamsters with slow tumors lived 29 days under cool-white tubes vs 43 days in daylight. The American Cancer Society refused a follow-up grant: light "will only confuse the issue."
- Wills Eye (Sery et al., 1970–73; EHLRI-sponsored): melanomas in mice were smaller and fewer under shielded full-spectrum light. Extra near-UV alone may increase tumors.
- Hellman & Lytle (1974): blue light lowered tumor incidence in rats.
- Chignell (NIEHS): effects in cool-white and pink groups. C3H mice are blind from weaning, so the route (eyes or skin) is unclear.
- NCI and peer review: NCI says Ott's proposals were "not relevant to ongoing work"; NCI also turned down Albert Szent-Györgyi.
- Sara's eye (report by ophthalmologist Leslie H. Salov, M.D., Whitewater, Wisconsin):
- At 4½ (Aug. 1978) her left eye bulged nearly ¾ inch from five lymphangiomas (blood-filled growths) behind it. Several operations and medications failed, and removing the eye was proposed.
- Salov's program: blue clothes, a blue room and a blue tent (4 × 15 minutes a day, unclothed); bare-headed sunlight 4 times a day, even in winter; no TV; additive-free diet, vitamins, exercises, breathing and imagery.
- The photo captions say no tumor remained after 5 months and vision was normal 2 months later. Salov's text says vision was "gradually approaching normal." This is a single case with many treatments at once.
- Papers Ott lists in support: fluorescent light damaging cells (Bradley & Sharkey, 1977; Kennedy, 1980); food dyes and hyperactivity (1980); and "Ionizing Radiation from Tinted Single Vision Spectacle Lenses" (Pecora & Brownridge, 1980), listed but not discussed.
§
Ch 9 — Resistance to Change in Cancer Research (p. 117)
▾
- An essay comparing cancer review committees to his bank's trust committee, which once approved streetcar bonds. The answer to cancer "may not be in the literature"; study spontaneous remissions and "what the person may have stopped doing." It includes the line "suggesting that wearing pink-tinted contact lenses might cause cancer."
§
Ch 10 — Two Sides to Every Story (p. 122)
▾
- The critics:
- Westinghouse found "no significant trends" in animals (1966).
- RCA (1966): a 25-inch color set gives about 0.05 milliroentgen per hour (0.01 in late models), and a child 40 inches away gets 4 millirem a year vs 100 from background. A pathology lab kept rats within 24 inches of color sets for generations and found them normal. RCA refused to test Ott's sets.
- C.L. Crouch, "We Cannot Believe..." (1975).
- A 1973 lighting-journal issue: Luke Thorington of Duro-Test (maker of Vita-Lite) said "It is not possible to provide light only for vision," while a Westinghouse–Colgate article answered "Probably Not."
- EHLRI classroom study vs the O'Leary–GE study (1978, with Mayron's rebuttal). EHLRI's results appeared after 60–90 days. O'Leary switched lights weekly over 56 days in a room with windows.
- Santa Cruz (1975), 9 autistic or disturbed children: 297 hyperactive incidents in the fluorescent week vs 201 under incandescent lamps (−32.3%). The teacher said the results were not conclusive. At Bonny Doon school, fewer headaches, nausea and irritability were reported in incandescent-lit rooms.
- Longview, Washington (1976): more attentive second-graders with the fluorescents off.
- Overbrook School for the Blind (Jerome Werlin): partially sighted children saw "objects and colors for the first time" with fluorescing objects under black light. Hyperactive children calmed. Ott says this "should also... lessen eyestrain" for fluorescent-lit workers.
- Sodium-vapor lights removed from schools in New York (1977) and Cheshire, Connecticut (1979) after complaints of "headaches, eyestrain, nervous tension, and nausea."
- VDTs (April 1981): the FDA passed them on radiation. NIOSH found 80–90% of clerical VDT operators had eyestrain or muscle strain and stress ratings above air traffic controllers'. Ott notes tested units are new and operators' are old.
- Ott says he was asked to fake time-lapse films. The TV-rat experiment; Ragen's outdoor horticultural therapy at Stateville prison.
- FDA: at a Bureau of Radiological Health seminar (Jan. 1981) the host tested weak under UV-shielded tubes and strong under shielded full-spectrum ones. Ott got an FDA advisory contract on March 2, 1981.
§
Ch 11 — The Pink Room (p. 140)
▾
- EHLRI history: founded 1962 as the Time-Lapse Research Foundation; renamed EHLRI in Sarasota in 1968; Ott retired 1977. It moved through Roswell Park, Nova University and Tacoma under Alexander Schauss, and is being re-founded at San José State University with Ott as senior research associate.
- Pink cells: Seattle Naval Correctional Center and Santa Clara County Jail. Schauss reports muscle relaxation in 2.7 seconds that even yogis cannot resist.
- Advice: no all-pink rooms; pastel blue, green and gray with small accents of yellow, orange and red.
- Eye route: the card must fill the field of vision. Closing the eyes restores strength in 1–2 seconds, and color-blind people react too. A High C note cancels pink.
§
Ch 12 — What the Average Person Can Do (p. 147)
▾
- The GE story (Key Idea 14). Ott believes it turned the industry toward sodium-vapor "crime lights." "Sunlight falls into the general category of those best things in life that are free."
- Practical sections (details in Practical Takeaways): UV-transmitting (UVT) plastic for windows; UVT eyeglasses and contacts; shielded full-spectrum fixtures with a separate black-light tube (its UV phosphor lasts 7,000–9,000 hours vs about 36,000 for visible light); interior colors; TV and VDT advice; the film Exploring the Spectrum; "Suggestions for Outdoor Living"; tanning parlors; Ott's own routine.
- TV: sets with an upward-facing tube and a mirror let "ionizing radiation [pass] straight on through" the mirror into lead shielding. The Ott family listens to the radio.
- "Neutral" vs "stress" materials: cotton, wool, linen, silk, leather and wood are neutral. Vinyl and polyester are worst. Smoke detectors act at up to 65 ft.
- The "Full Spectrum – Neutral Stress ® Ott Laboratories, Inc." seal: "Look for this symbol of approval."
§
Appendix I — More on Kinesiology (p. 164)
▾
- A listener showed that merely thinking about sugar weakens the muscles.
- UCSF double-blind test (Martin Greenberg, March 1984): Ott did all the testing. He scored near 100% when everyone knew the item and 53% double-blind. He concludes thought strongly affects muscle strength (placebo response about 26%) and calls for more double-blind tests.
§
Appendix II — Money in the Bank: A New Test Parameter (p. 167)
▾
- Light-sensitive drugs: indoor winter workers need higher doses. Ott's friend who blacked out in the sun did well on a lower dose plus sunlight.
- Poultry: hens lasted 5 years outdoors vs 13 months indoors. John Albright (Environmental Systems, Inc.) reports results with "Ott certified shielded fixtures":
- 8.5% more eggs, fewer cracked eggs, less feed, no cannibalism
- $91,300 a year saved
- eggs with 22% less cholesterol
- Ott's speculation: cholesterol needs UV to clear, as bilirubin needs blue light.
- Flu reports: in the avian flu of 1983–84 the test house lost few birds while nearby flocks were wiped out (about 15 million birds destroyed nationally). In the Hong Kong flu of 1968–69, contact-lens maker Obrig Laboratories, which had full-spectrum lighting and UVT windows, reported "not one employee was absent."
- Photopheresis (Columbia Presbyterian, 1983): a drug from celery and parsley plus UV treatment of the blood improved 4 of 5 patients with T-cell lymphoma.
§
Appendix III — The Ultraviolet Controversy (p. 172)
▾
- The monkey retina study (Ham et al., Medical College of Virginia): anesthetized monkeys without lenses, pupils dilated, lids held open with saline "to prevent drying of the cornea," under a 2,500-watt xenon lamp for 100–1,000 seconds. Ott calls it "totally abnormal and unrealistic."
- The UV 400 lens was presented for people whose lens was removed in cataract surgery but pushed as cataract prevention for everyone.
- Anecdote: a man with UV-transmitting implant lenses after cataract surgery saw his cholesterol fall from high-normal to low.
§
Appendix IV — Proof of the Pudding (p. 176)
▾
- Beral et al. (Lancet, Aug. 1982): melanoma linked to fluorescent lighting at work. Ott blames RF and X-rays, not UV. These pass through clothing, and computer CRTs emit them too. He says high-altitude people with more UV are "virtually free of all types of cancer."
- Bean seedlings under tube ends again (aluminum vs lead foil); the grounded wire grid that stops RF.
- Judith Haimes letter (1981):
- Infertile 1975–77 despite Clomid, working under fluorescent light.
- In Florida, Ott "told me to throw away my sunglasses"; she walked the beach up to 4 hours a day and was pregnant by March 1977.
- A diagnosed auditory-canal tumor was later doubted.
- Other remission clippings: McCarley (no glasses, no suntan lotion, a 3,723-mile walk after stomach cancer); a leukemia boy with horses; Brenda Lee Fortier (left fluorescent-lit work, imagery, gardening); Fred MacMurray.
- Ott's conclusion: sunlight "without overdoing it is beneficial."
§
Appendix V — Stop Fiddling (p. 184)
▾
- Pink anecdotes: two baseball-academy boys turned aggressive, one after starting pink sunglasses; radio station WILZ had staff conflict under deep-pink tubes that ended once the tubes were removed; three students in hot-pink sunglasses were the "most disturbed."
- Animals: less aggression under full-spectrum light in shrimp, rabbits and mink.
- TV X-rays and children (Adjustive Educational Center, Sarasota): all the learning-disabled children's home TVs emitted X-rays. After repair or disposal, all but one child returned to regular class. The last girl's pillow was inches from the back of a TV through the wall; she recovered when that was fixed.
- Wetaskiwin, Alberta (1982–83): full-spectrum light with UV brought less absenteeism and better achievement. Adding shielding changed hyperactivity. Final report pending.
- Unsourced claim: pregnant VDT workers face "a risk as high as 75 percent" of miscarriage or birth defects.
- Radiation stress leads to tranquilizers and drugs: "Rome is burning again."
§
Back matter
▾
- Bibliography of Ott's papers (1947–80), including the rabbit retinal pigment cell paper (1964), "The Influence of Light on the Retinal Hypothalamic Endocrine System" (1968), "The Eyes' Dual Function" (1974), the classroom papers (1976) and "Syntonic Optometry and Malillumination" (1980).
- Eye references:
- Noell on light damage to the retina
- Sisson, "Retinal Changes Produced by Phototherapy" (1970)
- Chow on chimpanzees reared in darkness
- "Light: A Double-edged Sword" (1971)
- "Sources of Information and Lights" (after the index): EHLRI (Tampa), Ott Light Systems Inc. (Santa Barbara), White Electric Co. (Berkeley), Designs Division (Massachusetts).
- Illustrations (pp. 80–81): the arm tests; one caption reads "Any eyeglasses that block the ultraviolet, also sunglasses, including those that darken when worn in sunlight, cause measurable loss of muscle strength." Also Sara's eye series, classroom stills, and the shielded fixture opened up (separate black-light tube, lead foil over the tube ends, wire-grid shield).
Practical Takeaways
What to actually do with this
Spend as much of the day outdoors as you can. For the full "outdoor living" plan he suggests at least 6 hours of natural daylight a day. Ott himself spends at least 1 hour a day in full sun in a bathing suit in Florida, avoiding noon in summer and taking more in winter.
You do not need direct sun. The aim is natural light into the eyes, so a screened porch or a shade tree is enough.
Build up sun exposure slowly if you are not used to it. Avoid 10 a.m.–3 p.m. (standard time) at first. Start with 15 minutes on each side on day one and 30 minutes on day two, and increase gradually. Sunburn shows up only hours later. Aim for a light tan; a very dark tan is "Nature's screaming, 'Too much!'"
Skip suntan lotions ("questionable and not recommended"). Avoid sun lamps and tanning beds that need goggles, since they use harmful short-wave UV.
Live by day and sleep at night: "go to bed at sunset and awaken at sunrise." Sleeping on a screened porch "is also recommended." Eat meals outdoors or on an open porch.
Do outdoor sports by day, not under artificial light at night.
Eat sensible, balanced meals, and avoid tobacco and liquor.
Keep windows open where you spend time, and draw a curtain over glass that does not open. In a car, look out of the open side window, not through the windshield.
Fit UV-transmitting plastic(UVT Acrylite by American Cyanamid; UVT Plexiglas by Rohm and Haas) in windows, skylights and sliding doors. Check the protective paper says UVT, not the UV-absorbing (UVA) type. Use it as thin as practical:
Replace standard fluorescent tubeswith full-spectrum fixtures that have lead-shielded tube ends, a grounded wire-grid RF shield, a UV-transmitting diffuser and a separate black-light UV tube. Replace the UV tube at the end of its 7,000–9,000-hour life.
Where you use bulbs, use "daylight" (blue-glass) incandescent bulbs. Ott notes they are not full spectrum.
Avoid pink and orange light: pink fluorescent tubes, sodium-vapor lamps, "psychedelic" lighting.
Decorating:white or light pastel blue, green, gray or beige ceilings and walls, with other colors, even small spots of pink or orange, as accents. Never a room all in one strong color, and never all pink. Make it look like the natural colors outdoors.
Do not watch TV; listen to the radio. If there is a TV, keep children well back from it. Never let anyone sleep with their head against a wall that has a TV on the other side. Have old sets checked or replaced (App V).
Keep away from running microwave ovens. Ott's arm tests found effects from 6 ft up to about 60 ft, and he prefers conventional cooking.
Avoid red-hot oven elements, stove burners and infrared heat lamps. Treat microwave communication systems as a hazard; he recommends Paul Brodeur's The Zapping of America.
Remove ionizing smoke detectors from within 50–65 ft of where you sleep.
Do not wear digital, battery or luminous-dial watches.
Do not hold magnets to the ear (phone receivers, hearing aids). Ott uses his "Hear Wax" instead.
Prefer natural fibers (cotton, wool, linen, silk), leather and wood for clothing, bedding and furniture. Avoid polyester and vinyl: sheets, nightclothes, mattresses, quilts, shoe soles, upholstery, floors. Cotton sheets over a polyester mattress are not enough. Put thick rubber-backed rugs over vinyl floors until they can be replaced.
Avoid refined white sugar, white flour and margarine; use butter, whole wheat and brown or raw sugar. Avoid manufactured cigarettes and microwaved food.
For drinking water, prefer well water, rain water or distilled water. Ott says boiling removes the effect of water that has passed through PVC pipe.
Buy milk in opaque containers. Light below 465 nm destroys vitamins A, B2 (riboflavin) and C (Sattar & deMan).
If you take light-sensitive drugs, ask your doctor whether the dose should be adjusted for your sun exposure rather than simply avoiding the sun. Ott's friend's doctor lowered the dose and told him to get sunlight carefully (App II).
Ott: anyone following the outdoor-living suggestions should "maintain very close contact with his or her doctor."
Remove watches, metal frames and synthetics, and check for smoke detectors and fluorescent lights first (Ch 4).
Remember Ott's own Appendix I: under double-blind conditions his results were 53%, no better than a coin flip.
Let unfiltered daylight into the eyes every day(Ch 3, 12). This is Ott's central eye advice: no window glass, no windshield, no ordinary glasses where avoidable. He calls the effect of light through the eyes on the glands "photocrinology."
Glasses and sunglasses:
UV-transmitting lenses:"Full Spectrum" lenses from Armorlite and "Sun/Lite" lenses from Eye Kraft Optical, clear or neutral gray; Bausch & Lomb Soflens contacts. Not for people who have had cataract surgery without their ophthalmologist's approval (Ch 12). Everyone in the Ott family who wears glasses uses UVT lenses.
Squinting, eye strain and light sensitivity:
Morning light after sleep:"the glandular system may be more sensitive to light immediately following the night sleep period." For the first hour or two after waking, and after any daytime rest, avoid artificial light and sunlight filtered through glass, even briefly (Ch 12). This is about hormones, not dryness, but it is the only advice tied to waking.
Night light:use a dim blue night light (a Christmas-tree bulb) instead of switching on ordinary lights, which "seem particularly bright when the eyes are accustomed to total darkness" (Ch 12).
Bedroom environment(Ott ties these to muscle weakness, sex drive and night urination, not to eyes): no ionizing smoke detector within 50 ft, no polyester sheets, nightclothes or mattress, no TV on the other side of the bedroom wall (Ch 1, 4, 6, App V).
Eye conditions in the book:
Metal eyeglass frames"cause muscle weakness"; Ott's fix is a wire joining the temples around the back of the head (Ch 5).
Tinted lenses and radiation:a 1980 paper on ionizing radiation from tinted spectacle lenses is listed but not discussed (Ch 8).
Ott Laboratories, Inc. holds the copyrightCh 12 tells readers to look for the "Full Spectrum – Neutral Stress ® Ott Laboratories, Inc." seal "to assist in selecting tested full-spectrum and neutral-stress products." The book does not say whether makers pay for the seal or whether Ott earns from it.
The recommended fixtures come through Ott's own instituteCh 12 recommends "Full Spectrum Radiation Shielded Fluorescent Fixtures," naming a Tampa maker with "address in appendix." That appendix lists the Environmental Health & Light Research Institute, the institute Ott founded and chaired until 1977. The book does not say who profits from fixture sales.
"Ott Light Systems Inc." (Santa Barbara)is listed under "Sources of Information and Lights." The book says nothing about Ott's relationship to this company, which bears his name. (The library's Liberman summary also notes the Ott Light, with a separate UV bulb and lead-shielded ends, and that Liberman's book likewise does not say whether Ott profits.)
Albright's poultry letter praises "Ott certified shielded fixtures"(App II). Ott certifies products, and the savings figures come from the head of a lighting-systems company, not an independent body.
Ott's own institute ran the key positive studies of his own fixture design:the EHLRI Sarasota classroom study, the EHLRI-sponsored Wills Eye melanoma study, the TV-rat studies. The book does report the negative GE-funded replication.
"Hear Wax"is Ott's own formula, and he had a patent search done (Ch 5). The book does not say it is sold. He recommends it over hearing aids with magnets (Ch 6).
His own books and films:the foreword calls My Ivory Cellar and Health and Light "requisites," and the publisher advertises them at the back. Ch 12 promotes the film Exploring the Spectrum, built from time-lapse footage of the kind Ott makes; the book does not name its maker or say whether Ott earns from it. Ott is president of John Ott Pictures, Inc.
Past paid advisory roles,disclosed by Ott: General Electric consultant from 1958 (not renewed after 1960), and an FDA advisory contract from March 2, 1981.
Silent on Duro-Test:the book never mentions any business tie to Duro-Test (maker of Vita-Lite), whose engineering vice president it quotes favorably (Ch 10). Liberman's Light: Medicine of the Future describes Vita-Lite as part of Ott's work.
Third-party brands he names:UVT Acrylite, UVT Plexiglas, Armorlite, Eye Kraft, Bausch & Lomb Soflens, and the praise for Obrig Labs. The book states no financial ties to any of these.
Close associates as sources:Schauss's pink-room report came from the man who became director of Ott's Center for Light Research. Hollwich (introduction) and Callahan (preface) are scientists whose work Ott leans on.
See Also
Related books in the library
[[jacob-liberman]] (Light: Medicine of the Future; Take Off Your Glasses and See, being added next). Ott wrote the foreword to Light: Medicine of the Future and is its main source. Liberman repeats Ott's malillumination, UV-through-the-eyes and fluorescent-tube claims, and adds clinical eye material (myopia, reducing prescriptions, syntonic color therapy) that this book lacks. Neither book covers dry eyes.
[[jack-kruse]] (Protocol 4). Kruse cites Ott directly: fluorescent lighting data, the color-TV X-ray recalls, and Ott's 1964 rabbit retinal pigment cell work. His "Your Eye as a Clock and Not a Camera" and myopia-and-light posts build on the same premise: the spectrum entering the eye drives hormones.
[[robert-becker]] (Cross Currents). Becker cites "John Ott's classroom observations" in his own fluorescent-light advice. He agrees fluorescent lights are worth avoiding but measures a different mechanism: 60-Hz magnetic fields (a 10 W tube gives 6 mG at 2 inches and 1 mG at a foot, at least 20 times an incandescent bulb), not Ott's cathode X-rays and RF. His TV, VDT and microwave-oven advice overlaps Ott's Ch 12.
[[becker-selden]] (The Body Electric). Becker's measured direct-current control system is the rigorous counterpart to Ott's loosely defined "electrical dimension of living cells." Becker never uses muscle testing; his evidence is instrument-based.
[[paul-brodeur]] (The Zapping of America; Currents of Death). Ott tells readers to read The Zapping of America for "the full story" on microwave communication hazards (Ch 12). Currents of Death gives the documented version of the VDT and pregnancy story behind Ott's unsourced "75 percent" figure (App V), and its eye material (microwave cataracts) complements Ott's.
[[samuel-milham]] (Dirty Electricity). Milham also targets fluorescent lighting, but as a source of high-frequency "dirty electricity" on house wiring. That is a third mechanism, alongside Becker's magnetic fields and Ott's X-rays and RF. The advice is the same: remove the tubes.
[[martin-blank]] (Overpowered). Blank says to avoid fluorescent and compact fluorescent lights (fields 20–40 times those of incandescent bulbs) and notes Zaret's microwave cataracts. This is a modern scientist's version of several Ch 12 recommendations, without the muscle testing.
[[kneipp]] (Thus Shalt Thou Live; The Care of Children in Sickness and in Health). A century earlier Kneipp made the same core argument: live and work in full daylight, artificial light weakens eyesight (children in spectacles), sunlight should enter every room, and wear natural fibers (linen) next to the skin.
[[michel-odent]] (Birth and Breastfeeding). Ott blames electronic fetal monitors for rising Caesarean rates through "loss of uterine muscle strength" (Ch 1, 4). Odent agrees monitoring raises C-section rates, citing randomized trials, but explains it through disturbed birth physiology, not radiation.